United Athletic Conference

RICE IN CWS FOR THIRD TIME IN SIX YEARS Rice swept Louisiana State last weekend to earn its third trip to the College World Series in six years. The Owls won the first game on Friday night, 6-0, behind Steven Herces three-hitter. Rice got a second consecutive shutout on Saturday afternoon when Justin Crowder blanked the Tigers, 3-0, on five hits. Senior second baseman Eric Arnold was the offensive star for the Owls after going 6-for-8 at the plate with two doubles, a home run, three RBI and three runs scored in the two games.

CWS OPPONENTS The Owls (No. 4 national seed) open the College World Series in game four against Texas (No. 5) on Saturday at 6:00 p.m. (CT). Rice is ranked number one nationally by Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball while Texas is ranked second in those publications. Texas has the best team ERA in the nation at 2.75 while Rice is second at 2.77. The game will be televised by ESPN. If it wins, Rice would play the winner of the Notre Dame-Stanford game on Monday at 7:00 p.m. Should they lose, the Owls would play the loser of that game on Monday at 2:30 p.m. Of the seven possible opponents in the College World Series, the Owls are 1-2 with a win over Nebraska and two losses versus Texas. In all games, Texas is 204-43-2 versus the Owls. Texas and Rice have never met in the NCAA Tournament.

WAC AND THE CWS This is the 21st time a WAC team has made an appearance in the College World Series and the fourth in the last six years. The WAC has had five national champions as Arizona State won it four times (1965-1967-1969-1977) and Arizona once (1976) as members of the league. WAC teams are a combined 49-35 (.583) in CWS play. In recent history, Rice was 0-2 in 1997, 1-2 in 1999 and San Jose State went 0-2 in 2000.

RICE NOTES Rice is the second highest remaining national seed behind only Clemson (No. 2) ... the Owls have won 11 of its last 12 games after losing three of its previous five games ... Rice has won its last nine games away from home ... Rice finished its home season with a 33-6 (.846) record ... the two games against Louisiana State drew Reckling Park record crowds of 4,615 to each game ... Rice drew 92,069 in 37 home dates (2,488 average) ... the Owls have won 40 or more games for the eighth straight season and 50 or more games for the second time in their history ... the Owls are 13-4 against ranked teams this year ... Rice leads the WAC in hitting (.322) and ERA (2.77) ... Rice pitchers have struck out 556 batters in 579.0 innings ... the Owls have a WAC-high 59 stolen bases, 15 more than their total from last year ... Rice is the only team in the country ranked in the top 25 in batting, pitching and fielding ... freshman first baseman Vincent Sinisi is the only WAC player with an overall batting average over .400 (.432), 63 points higher than the next best player in the WAC ... his average is currently the best ever by an Owl as current Houston Astro Lance Berkman set the record of .431 in 1997 ... Sinisi leads the WAC with 22 games with three or more hits ... in conference games only, the Owls hit .348 and had three of the top four hitters in the league led by Sinisis .500 average (61-122) ... Rice was the only team in the WAC to hit over .300 (.348) and have a team ERA of less than 4.00 (2.79) in conference games.

ALL-REGIONAL SELECTIONS A total of six Owls earned all-regional honors, May 31-June 2, including: 1B Vincent Sinisi, 2B Eric Arnold, 3B Hunter Brown, OF Chris Kolkhorst, OF Austin Davis and P Justin Crowder. Sinisi was named the regionals Most Outstanding Player after hitting .500 (8-16) with two home runs, five RBI and six runs scored in four games. San Jose State did not have any players selected to the Stanford all-regional team.

ALL-AMERICANS Last month, Collegiate Baseball announced the Louisville Slugger All-American teams and five WAC players earned honors. Second team selections included Rice RHP Philip Humber and Fresno State utility player Ben Fritz. Rice RHP Steven Herce, Rice 1B Vincent Sinisi and San Jose State RHP Matt Durkin made the third team.

ALL-WAC TEAM The all-WAC teams were announced on May 27. The complete teams can be found later in this release.

STREAKING Louisiana Tech freshman second baseman Brandon Haygood currently has the WACs longest hitting streak at 15 games. Haygood hit .355 (22-62) with nine RBI and eight runs during that span to finish his season. Rices Vincent Sinisi has an 11-game hitting streak going into the College World Series. The longest streak of the year was by Fresno States Casey McGehee who hit safely in 31 games from March 15-May 18.

IN THE POLLS In this weeks polls, Rice is 1st in the Baseball America poll, 2nd in the Baseball Weekly/ESPN poll and 1st in the Collegiate Baseball poll. The Owls are also 2nd in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association poll. San Jose State is ranked 24th in Baseball America, 29th in Collegiate Baseball, 20th by Baseball Weekly/ESPN and 18th in the NCBWA poll.

NON-CONFERENCE In non-conference games, the WAC is 99-75 (.569). Fresno State is 13-16 (.448), Hawaii is 11-14 (.440), Louisiana Tech is 14-14 (.500), Nevada is 15-12 (.556), Rice is 24-10 (.706) and San Jose State is 22-9 (.710).

BASEHITS Fresno State: head coach Bob Bennett finished his career as the seventh winningest coach in Division I with 1,302 victories ... pitcher/utility player Ben Fritz was the first WAC player selected in the 2002 MLB First-Year Player draft ... Fritz was taken in the first round by the Oakland As (30th overall) ... the Bulldogs announced last month that Mike Batesole would take over the program next year ... Batesole was Cal State Northridges head coach from 1996-2002 and had a record of 255-156-1 ... Cal State Northridge won the WAC in 1996 as an affiliate member and was 52-18 on the season ... Hawaii: the Rainbows lost 18 of their last 20 games ... junior pitcher Chris George had all five conference wins for the Rainbows this year ... Hawaii was the only WAC team to not win a conference series this year (0-10) ... Louisiana Tech: the Bulldogs lost eight of their last 10 games ... head coach Jeff Richardson finished the season one win shy of 100 for his career ... Brandon Haygood finished the season with a 15-game hitting streak, the longest by a Bulldog this year ... Techs ERA of 4.70 is its lowest since 1993 ... the Bulldog pitching staff set a school record for most strikeouts with 452 and allowed only 48 home runs in 31 home games, the lowest since 1989 ... Lee Gwaltney struck out 21 Rice batters in his two appearances (15 innings) against the Owls ... Nevada: was 7-7 in the month of May ... Nevada led the WAC in home runs during May with 25, 11 more than the second best team (Fresno State) ... the Pack did not win 30 games for the first time in nine years ... senior Curtis Wickwire had 13 hits this season, eight of which were home runs ... San Jose State: before losing both games in the NCAA regional, the Spartans had won 19 of their previous 22 games ... San Jose State had a WAC-best ERA of 2.72 and a team batting average of .333 during the month of May ... SJSUs 45 wins set a new school record along with their 649 hits and 464 runs ... San Jose State is the only team in the WAC undefeated in extra inning games (4-0) ... SJSU is fifth nationally in fielding percentage (.973) ... senior second baseman Gabe Lopez has the WACs best fielding percentage (.979) for any player with at least 100 assists (149-180-7).